Diets are Designed to lead to Deliberate Denial of Desserts.
This, in turn, brings one Dangerously close to
Disappointment, Deprivation and Depression. Such
Deterioration can be Definitely and Dramatically reversed by
inDulging in Desserts on a Daily basis. Relief from stress
will be instant, immeDiate and ecstatic.
Point of observation: `Stressed' spelled backwards is
`Desserts' - so forward together, to the sweet table!
And on the other side of the scale, after a full- blown
Purim binge and never mind the deadline of finishing off all
those cream wafers...
Oh, What a Riot - Here's Another Diet
by D. Shein
These days when I go to a simcha or even meet someone
on the street, the topic of conversation is not a latest
birth -- I'm beyond that age -- or, thank G-d, a recent
ailment and what so-and-so did to recover. Friends will stop,
do a double take, and hesitantly ask me, "You've lost a lot
of weight, haven't you?" The hesitation? Because some weight
losses are due to sickness, G-d forbid. And if it's due to a
diet, well, they are hard put to believe it, and are
downright envious.
O.K. so I lost a lot of weight. "How did you do it?" they
finally ask, after they are convinced that I feel better than
ever. Sure, I feel better than when I had to lug an extra
eighteen kilos around, climb up stairs, bend down to tie my
shoes, haul myself up buses, struggle up Jerusalem hills,
shlep shuk baskets (I am one of those last creatures still
around using the plastic `Yad Eliezer' shopping baskets, if
you know what I mean) and so on.
We must all have experienced those dreams where we are able
to defy gravity and float around, get from here to there
effortlessly. I can't say that in real life it's quite like
that now, but the new mobility sure feels good. And I
certainly do get around faster without the huffing and
puffing! Shedding weight is almost like shedding years!
Okay, D., so how DID you get rid of those extra kilos? (Is
saying it in kilos more or less effective than pounds, which
translates into 2.2 times the amount? Perhaps getting those
pounds are easier and register quicker at half a kilo a
time.)
Repeat Performance
Anyone who has successfully lost weight at any time, has
probably done so before as well, and perhaps learned from
past experience how to tackle it better the next time round,
when she is good and ready. When is she good and ready?
(Isn't this what our battle with the yetzer hora is
all about, in general? Learning the tactics and improving on
them?)
It's all a question of motivation, we all agree, and timing,
which translates into goal setting. It has to do with
ulterior -- and not only exterior -- motives. In my case, the
trigger was a digital scale which came my way, and the boost -
- the month of Elul, but for the sake of this article, any
time is a good time.
There has to be some element of lesheim Shomayim in a
diet; at my age, relatively speaking, you're not doing it for
absolute beauty, or for a shidduch. Rather for health
and a general feeling of well-being. And certainly for that
sense of personal accomplishment and getting that yetzer
hora throttled at the jugular, or if you prefer,
gullet.
It was just short of the first of Elul when the scale came
into my possession. I stepped on it, and got the shock of my
life. I converted it into pounds, got an even bigger shock
and quickly went back to kilos. It would be harder to lose
kilos, but I made my decision, then and there, to shed a good
many of them by Chanuka.
Chanuka has come and gone and I am 18 kilos lighter, give or
take one or two at any given moment (read: Sunday). When I
made the drastic decision, I had to have some plan of
action.
Strategy for the Lean and Hungry Times
As all diet plans will tell you, a person has to have a
certain strategy for those lean and hungry times, for that
grumbling in the stomach that needs starch and sugar to
assuage it. So what is going to plug up that hole?
I figured that I would need equal quantities of whatever to
fool my mouth and my body, so long as the consumption had
hardly any calories. To begin with, that is, to begin the day
with, I drank coffee with saccharine. It filled, and the
interesting bonus was that it left that strange after-taste
in my mouth reminiscent of those early months of pregnancy
when you don't have too much appetite. I used to chuckle at
the idea but realized that it was working.
Another trick along the same lines was to prepare a huge
salad for breakfast, which I never had time to do when I
could substitute with carbohydrate food, but my determination
supplied the time. Here the trick was to incorporate a small
onion, which left the identical after-taste in the mouth that
lingered on and killed the appetite for sweet things. And
you'd be surprised at how filling a huge salad is! Partially,
because by the time you finished eating it, the initial
hunger pangs were stilled. Your stomach was pretty full. And
you could always wash it down with another coffee and
saccharine. (More on breakfast later on.)
Drink to Your Health
I didn't want to be drinking too much coffee, so I
incorporated drinking into my attack on the bulge and created
a repertoire of beverages, hot and cold. I drank some other
hot drinks which were very satisfying: hot water with a spoon
of tomato paste and a dash of salt or with tomato juice; hot
water with vanilla, milk and saccharine; hot tea with milk,
herbal teas, even hot water with some pure grapefruit or
orange juice and saccharine. For the hot days, there was
seltzer, even with a bit of commerical sweet drink. I could,
of course, have bought myself diet colas, but I felt that was
indulging, and therefore excluded it from my overall plan. I
did include it at weddings, for a special treat. Drinking
helped a lot.
There's another trick which most diets tell you -- to chew
slowly. Busy people don't have time to do that, unless they
have to plow through a salad!
The Double List -- Foods that Fill and Foods that Fill
Needs
What do I mean? 1/2% cheese fills. Leben fills. Eat as much
of these as you can and you will also feel that you are
contributing to the fight against osteoporosis. As for the
other category, I used fruits to satisfy the need for
something sweet.
It takes time to peel an apple (my teeth are not what they
used to be and I need it sectioned) or a tangerine, but the
sweetness is out of this world if you are sugar-deprived, as
you will be. I didn't count my fruit calories even when it
came to easy-to-eat pears because the satisfaction was worth
it, and it provided necessary vitamins to boot. It also gave
an extra satisfaction that is hard to beat -- a brocha
said with genuine kavona. You begin to appreciate the
world of fruits that Hashem created.
Know Thyself
I maintain that each person must create her own strategy and
plan ahead for those lean hours. I would combine the two
strategies of fill/fill needs and grate two apples coarsely,
heap on cheese, sprinkle with cinnamon and some sprouts and
dig in. By the time I'd finished this meal or snack, I really
wasn't hungry. Grated carrots, even finely grated, are fine,
too, since they are sweet enough and need chewing and really
are satisfying.
Another `meal' was to grate a carrot and a squash coarsely
and boil them up into a soup. It cooks very quickly which is
very important when you are hungry, and you can add string
beans, cabbage or other such low- calorie vegetables. A
teaspoon of soup powder can go a long way in creating a dish
that is temporarily satisfying, takes time to eat, and really
has almost no calories. Two plates of this can constitute a
good lunch after you'd eaten my breakfast.
Breakfast
I began my day with a normal meal: two slices of any bread,
preferably toasted to prolong the eating of it, white cheese
or some tuna together with salad with onion, and a soft-
boiled egg. The onion and saccharine together left enough
after-taste to kill any extra appetite and made me feel I had
provided my body with enough nutrients on which to subsist.
The rest of the day would be a battle of fooling my stomach
on a quiet conscience that I had enough vitamins, proteins
and minerals to survive a strict diet for the rest of the
day.
So that's it in a nutshell, no, perish the word, in a leben
cup. Know your own tendencies, prepare for the weak moments,
have enough celery/ apples/ cheese/ oranges around, and weigh
yourself every day to see if you've progressed downwards.
Of course, Shabbos has to be time-off to allow for your
neshoma yeseira to enjoy herself, even at your
expense. Indulge and don't feel guilty.
Good luck!
POSTSCRIPT: It is three months since I wrote the above
article and I've lost another 3 kilos on maintenance, which
is just as hard but has allowances so long as you keep on
weighing in every morning to know where you stand.
